2018 Halloween Event/Stories
Below is a compilation of the stories -- the quest texts -- given by the Librarian for each quest of the 2018 Halloween Event. Numbers in parentheses represent the quest number, with "a" told by the Librarian at the start of the quest, and "b" told when the quest is completed. The names of named quests are included. Prologue (1a - The Lost Library) Avid reader! Welcome, eager reader, to the Lost Library. Were you looking for anything in particular? (1b) I do hope that you're not too easily frightened. Here we specialise in tales of a rather... nefarious nature (2a - The Librarian) Please, take a look around. If you see anything that takes your fancy, don't hesitate to let me know (2b) Me? I'm the Librarian. I have worked here for as long as I can remember. I don't think that I will ever leave (3a - A Novel Warning) The books in this library can be very gripping. Be sure you don't let them pull you in too deep, or you might never return (3b) Just a friendly warning, of course. We don't want you getting lost in here as I have (4a - Recommendations) The books near the entrance are somewhat of a more easy read. Venture further down to the back of the library and you may find the tales residing there to be a bit more difficult to stomach (4b) Of course, I can always suggest something for you. Let's see (5a - The First Book) Ah, yes. I have a book here that I'm sure will bewitch you (5b) This one is called 'Lost in the Woods' '' First Story - Lost in the Woods '(6a)' ''She felt like she had been walking for hours. Maybe it had been that long. She had no grasp of how much time had passed. Her head was only filled with worry. A thousand possible worst case-scenarios stampeding through her mind (6b) She screamed out for him once more. His name distorted as it passed forcibly from her raw battered throat. Where had he run off to? Was he playing a joke on her? He would often wander off to explore, but he would always return when she called him (7a) The sun was starting to set and the long shadows from the trees began to stretch further like a tide of darkness rushing into (sic) through the woods to flood the ground around her (7b) She had to find him soon. In her head she had an image of him that she couldn't shake - lost, shaking, alone in the cold, black woods at night, crying out for help (8a) She looked around, there was no sign of him. Maybe he found his way to the path. He was smart for his age, he knew that he shouldn't wander too far from the footpath so maybe he was just waiting further up ahead (8b) She started to run along the winding pathway, she couldn't see too far ahead for (sic) intertwining canyon of trees ahead. She held her breath at each meandering opening, in the hope that he would be standing waiting there (9a) After the fourth turn, she stopped dead in her tracks. She felt her heart sink and her breath freeze, stuck fast in her throat. Laying on the path was a coat. His coat. She ran towards it, she had never moved so fast in her life (9b) She knelt down to check. Maybe it wasn't his. She felt her heart pulling out of her as she turned the coat over and saw his name written on the label. She had completely lost all control now, and the panic had consumed her (10a) She thought back to the image of him cold and alone in the dark. She took a deep breath and composed herself. On the ground besider her she noticed footprints, they had trodden through the leaves and into the denser woodlands, they had to be his (10b) Frantically she chased the trail of footprints. In the distance she noticed a small cabin. It looked abandoned, but there was smoke coming from the chimney. There was someone inside! He must have walked there looking for help (11a) She began banging on the door before her feet had even come to a stop. She didn't want to scare the resident of the cabin, so she forced herself to stop and composed herself (11b) Some seconds later, the door began to open and an old lady peered her head around the door. "Yes?", she said in a frail and confused tone. "Please, have you seen a young boy? He has blonde hair. We were out walking and he ran off and got lost" (12a) "No, I'm sorry, I haven't seen anybody", the old lady responded. She had a scared look about her, but the woman sensed something off about her. "Could I please come in and use your telephone?" she asked. The old woman opened the door and she stepped inside (12b) The old lady led the woman into the kitchen. "Please, take a seat. I'll have to fish the telephone out from the back room as we don't usually keep (sic) plugged in. Would you like some tea?" (13a) She didn't want to seem rude, and it had been a long time since she'd had anything to drink, so she agreed. The old lady then poured her a cup and shuffled off out of the kitchen to fetch the telephone (13b) The woman stared intently at her tea as she ran her finger around the rim of the cup. Her heart was still racing so fast, she couldn't get the image of him from her mind, he must be so scared all alone (14a) Suddenly she heard a loud crash from the next room. She jolted immediately (sic) see what had happened, and in the room she saw him, the young boy, her boy (14b) The old lady was (sic) stood in front of her with a knife. "No!", the old lady screamed, "I won't let you take him". The woman moved towards her, eyes burning with anger (15a) Inexplicably, the old woman started to turn the knife towards herself. With a horrified panic, she began to stab herself repeatedly in the chest, and then collapsed to the floor (15b) The woman turned to the young boy and smiled. "You see? This is what happens when you try to run from me" (16a - A Wicked Twist) I love stories with a twist! Don't you? (16b) There are plenty of other terrifying tales hidden in this library. Would you like another? (17a - The Second Book) The situation starts to get pretty hairy in this next book (17b) This one is called 'The Beast Within' '' Second Story - The Beast Within '(18a)' ''There was something odd about the moon that night, something in the way it was hanging. It seemed bigger than usual, and much closer, almost threatening (18b) He had spent the last two days tracking the beast, and now there he stood on its doorstep. Staring into the abyss, the fear started to grip him, almost as if its reaching out from the cave itself to engulf him (19a) The fear and doubt were certainly compelling enough to make him walk away but he knew that if he did, the village would never be safe; his family would never be safe (19b) The beast had already claimed his eldest son and he would be damned if he allowed the fear to drive him from delivering his retribution. With his hands shaking from the adrenaline, he raised his torch and followed it into the darkness (20a) With every step he took, the walls seemed to creep closer and closer around him. There was a faint rancid smell being carried through the air. The deeper he went into the cave, the more pungent it became (20b) The man came to an opening in the cave, a wide circular cavern decorated with thousands of razor-sharp stalactites looming over him like rocky chandeliers. The fear of surrounding danger had surpassed him by this point, or so he thought (21a) A deep growl shook the cavern, the man felt the ground tremble and his legs followed suit. As he stared deep into the darkness of the far-side of the cavern, holding his torch out at arms-length, he finally saw it (21b) Two piercing yellow eyes staring directly back at him. The fear had taken control now, holding the man frozen in his place. The beastly figure began to grow from the shadows. A hulking giant wolf slowly pacing towards him (22a) The man shut his eyes and tried to find something to force the fear from his mind. He thought back to the night that his son was taken from him. He failed to save him from the beast then, but would avenge him tonight (22b) He reached for his knife, gripping tight onto the handle, but it wouldn't release from the sheath. He drew his gaze away from the wolf for only a second, before he felt the weight of the beast hit him at full force and pin him to the ground (23a) He was face to face with the beast now, with mere inches between them. He could feel the heat from the wolf's snarling breath upon his face, its eyes fixed deep, almost rooted to his own (23b) Now up close, he saw the wolf's eyes to be blue. The yellow must have been a reflection from the flame of the torch. Still, there was something odd about the blue shade of its eyes, something familiar (24a) The beast began to snarl louder now, his head retreating slightly as if it were preparing to lunge. The man's only thought at this point was survival. As he reached back to try to free his knife, he felt the beast's jaw clamp around his arm, its teeth searing through his skin (24b) The pain released a terrible scream from him. Instantly his grip tightened and in one swift motion of struggle, he yanked the knife free from the sheath and tore it straight through the belly of the beast (25a) The wolf responded with a cry of its own and rolled off the man. It stumbled and began to retreat, whimpering with each hurried step (25b) Rage and aggression filled the man. His hunger for revenge drowned out any mercy that he might have ordinarily had for animals he had hunted in the past. He grabbed hold of the beast and threw his knife into its hide repeatedly until the crying had stopped (26a) The man sat there for 20 minutes, waiting for the anger and adrenaline to subside, and hopefully be replaced with a sense of peace. Before long, his hands had stopped shaking, but there was still no sign of the peace he had been longing for (26b) He dragged the wolf's body out through the cave, wrapped it in cloth, and placed it onto his horse. He knew the villagers wouldn't be able to rest until they had seen proof that this monster had been slain (27a) Two days later he arrived back at the village. It was late in the evening but the villagers had all collected upon the gates, eagerly awaiting his return. The man looked over to his wife in the crowd, her emotions moulded together with grief and anticipation (27b) The man lifted the body of the beast from his horse, it was lighter than he remembered, and he threw it to the ground. A cheer from the surrounding villagers crashed into him like a wave. But it was short-lived as the cheer soon transformed into screams of horror (28a) The man looked down at the conquered beast strewn on the floor. The cloth had draped off only slightly from the fall, but it was enough to reveal the terrifying truth he could have never predicted (28b) Wrapped in the cloth was the lifeless body of his eldest son. Overcome with confusion and despair, the man fell to his knees. He could no longer hear the screaming around him, but he knew it was still there, he could see the people crying out in terror (29a) The man turned towards his wife once more, the look of horror on her face burned forever into his mind. The anger and rage came flooding back in him now, this time stronger than he had ever felt before, in a way it was almost primal (29b) As he dug his fingers into the ground, his gaze was drawn to the moon once again. It was calling out to him. He felt his wound begin to burn and his skin start to stretch outwards. Something was awakening within him (30a - A Beastly End) That story always makes my skin crawl (30b) I feel like you've started to get a taste for these books. Would you like another? (31a - The Third Book) This next book is bound to get your pulse racing (31b) This one is called 'On Death's Door' '' Third Story - On Death's Door '(32a)' ''A cold winter night. Two forensic pathologists stayed behind working late. A new cadaver was brought in who died under seemingly mysterious circumstances. They relished opportunities like this. A welcome change from all the typical gunshot and knife related murders (32b) Busy and focused on their work, they heard three loud consecutive bangs. Someone was knocking on the metal door outside the morgue. They played rock-paper-scissors to decide who would go and answer it; one, two, three (33a) The elder of the two loses, makes his way to the door and opens it, but there is no one there. Confused, he heads down towards the front door of the building. Sound sometimes carries down the corridor so it could be that someone outside was trying to get into the building (33b) He approached the front door and opened it with his key-card. It was pitch black outside, save for the light above the door. The snow was starting to fall heavily now. He started to worry that he would end up getting stuck here overnight (34a) There was no sign of anyone around. It was probably the local kids in the area, knocking on the door and running away. They'd done this a thousand times before. Though what puzzled the man was that there were no signs of footprints in the snow outside (34b) He made his way back down the corridor and into the morgue towards the table they'd been working on. His colleague and the cadaver were both gone (35a) The man started to put two and two together now and realised it must all be a practical joke put on by his colleague. She joked around like this all the time. "You've got to have a sense of humour working in a morgue", she would always say (35b) As the man neared closer to the table he noticed a trail of blood on the floor leading out into the next room. There were a thousand possibilities running through his head. Should he be scared? Concerned? Or was this all really just an elaborate prank? (36a) He followed the trail into the next room to find his colleague laying there in the middle of the floor. This must be another one of her jokes. But as he moved closer into the room, he was hit with a terrifying realisation (36b) What he saw next couldn't possibly have been staged. His colleague's arm had been completely torn off from her shoulder! In a panic, the man ran towards her, frantically trying to pull off his lab coat and wrap it around her to stop the bleeding (37a) His colleague was unresponsive. The man put his ear down to her mouth to listen for breathing. Horrifyingly, he did hear breathing, but it wasn't his colleague. A deep panting and grunting sound was coming from a darkened corner of the room (37b) The man noticed the blood trail continuing on into that direction and what he saw next chilled him to the bone. The cadaver was alive and hunched over in the corner of the room, eating his colleague's arm! (38a) The man gasped in terror and stumbled backwards, collapsing on the floor. The reanimated cadaver heard this and started to move towards him. Instinctively, the man fled in terror and rushed out of the room (38b) He sprinted down the corridor towards the front door. As he arrived, he suddenly remembered that his key-card was still in the pocket of his lab coat. He banged on the door, three loud solid hits on the wood of the door, hoping that someone outside will hear him (39a) There was no way that he was going to risk going back into the morgue but he knew he wouldn't be safe just standing here (39b) He noticed that the door to one of the freezer rooms was open, and so he rushed inside and in a panic, shutting the door fast behind him (40a) The lights were off in the room. He could hardly see a thing. He fumbled his hands along the walls for a few seconds until he found the light-switch (40b) To his relief, the room was empty. It always surprised him just how cold it got in that room, even more so without his lab-coat. He looked to the door and remembered that it locks shut from the outside (41a) He always had his key-card with him, so he naturally just took these things for granted. Luckily he always kept his cell phone in his trouser pocket, though he knew he wasn't supposed to (41b) He pulled out his phone from his pocket, and just as he began to start to dial he heard three loud metal bangs. The same sound as he had heard before, but this time much, much closer (42a) He turned around and was flooded with fear when he realised. The loud banging hadn't been coming from outside the front door at all, but from inside the morgue (42b) He grabbed hold of the door handle and tries (sic) to force his way out, but it's no use. The man was trapped. He heard an assortment of shuffling noises, and the body chambers on the wall began to open from the inside (43a - A Chilling Conclusion) My blood runs cold hearing that tale again (43b) Do you think you can handle one more story? (44a - The Fourth Book) This next book is sure to give you the chills (44b) This one is called 'Till Death Do Us Part' '' Fourth Story - Till Death Do Us Part '(45a)' ''The crew already started setting up by the time she arrived at the location. She had done shoots like this dozens of times before. The show was already on its fifth season and the renewal for the sixth was looking pretty safe (45b) Paranormal Encounters has rapidly become one of the most popular 'Ghost Hunting' shows due to the extremely convincing footage they captured in the episode "The Strangled Siren" (46a) The shoot was set at a lesser known location that night, an abandoned church rumoured to be haunted by a jilted bride who, stricken with grief, threw herself from the steeple (46b) As usual, the team had meticulously planned out a number of triggered scare-moments. Each of them were tried and tested methods that the crew had used a hundred times before (47a) The over-powered air-conditioning system that the presenter would use to convince the viewers of the goosebumps as the 'entity' brushed past her arm and there was (sic) sudden drop of temperature in the room (47b) The eerie 'knocking' sound on the wall that would later be heavily edited in post-production. Even the dull flashlight they would use to effect a 'ghostly orb' whizzing across the screen for a "blink and you'll miss it" moment of mystery horror (48a) The presenter looked over the schedule plan one last time quickly to remind herself and then moved into the position for the external introductory opening shot. The cameras started rolling and she worked her way through the introduction (48b) They then moved into the interior of the church, where the team had already began preparations for the next shots, and the presenter continued on inside with some additional dressed-up fabricated history about the building and of the tale of the tragic wedding day (49a) The network had hired the show's resident medium for a séance encounter that the writers had planned in (sic) for this episode. A tragic death story was always fitting for a believable séance (49b) The medium began to do his thing, and as ever, within minutes he began channeling the tortured spirit of the jilted bride (50a) Right on cue, the temperature dropped in the room and the presenter began to shiver, visually exaggerating in an effort to chill the viewers at home (50b) She then put on her most convincing face and put forth some questions to the 'spirit', each one conveniently corroborating the history and backstory that she had run through earlier on (51a) She pushed through to the end of the lines for the shot, and immediately after the director called to cut, she began to scream at the crew. The air-conditioning was set far colder than they'd ever had it before (51b) The presenter had always had a history of losing her temper from time to time but this was much worse than most of the crew had ever seen before. She ranted on for two minutes before she stopped to take a breath (52a) With a mix of fear and confusion, the crew cautiously explained that the generator had shorted out when they tried to cue the air-conditioning and that it had been switched off the entire time (52b) The presenter snapped again straight away, accusing the crew of playing tricks on her and wasting the network's time and money. At this point, the director stepped in and called for a 10 minute break so that everybody could calm down (53a) The director sat down with her outside the church and explained that neither he nor the crew members had felt cold at all during the filming of the shot, and he asked her if she was feeling ill (53b) She looked as if she was about to explode with anger, but just as she started to open her mouth the sound of a church bell began to ring (54a) One of the few genuine facts that they had conveyed about the church was that bell had been removed when the church closed down after the accident. The two looked up to the steeple in sheer confusion (54b) As they stared up at where the bell once stood, they noticed movement. The crew waiting inside the church had climbed up to the steeple for some reason. The director shouted for them to get back down inside the church immediately (55a) It looked as if they were taking no notice at all, and instead they seemed to be forming a queue of some sort. Shockingly, and without hesitation, one by one they began to leap from the steeple directly onto the concrete ground below (55b) The director ran for the church door but it had been locked from the inside. The presenter began screaming in horror and as they both looked up at the steeple, they saw a figure standing next to the crew in a white wedding dress Epilogue (56a - A Darkened End) I think that last story scares me the most out of all of them (56b) It seems that we've made it all the way to the other end of the Library. I often forget how dark it is over here. (57a - The Replacement) I would show you out, but I'm afraid that's just not possible. The Lost Library has finally claimed another unfortunate soul to take my place. I did warn you not to wander so far deep (57b) I would get comfortable if I were you. It may be quite some time before your replacement arrives. Shall I recommend another book? de:Halloween-Event 2018#Event-Questreihe Category:2018 Halloween Event Category:Seasonal Events Category:Halloween Events